The title "Carrying Fire" is taken from Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men,in which Sheriff Ed Tom Bell talks about his own father. “I had two dreams about him after he died. I don’t remember the first one all that well. But the second one it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Never said nothing. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen that he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there.”

Saturday, January 31, 2015

The Search Continues: Czech Republic

I mentioned in the last post that while searching for information about my father's WWII service, in 2005 we stumbled onto valuable information through a Google search with links to the 398th Bomb Group and a Czech website showing photos of a memorial to my father and his crew near Slany, Czech Republic

On Easter morningI called 398th's Flak News editor Allen
Ostrom in Seattle . I believe he was as surprised to hear from
me as I had been to uncover the 398th website. Allen sent
me copies of his photos of the Slany memorial along with more
articles pertaining to my father and his crew. He also put me in
touch with both surviving crew members, tail gunner Selmer Haakenson and navigator Lawson
Ridgeway, and with Jan Zdiarsky in the Czech Republic. Jan speaks
and writes fluent English and, among other things, runs a WWII air
museum near the German border and is one of the people, along with his friend Jaromir Kohout, most responsible for the Slany
memorial. Jan informed me that there was a ceremony scheduled at our
father’s memorial in June. At that point it seemed we had no
choice but to go. We would worry about the cost later.

Five of us made the journey: I was
joined by my wife Miriam, son Jeff, eldest grandson Jake Christensen,
and Miriam’s son, Joah. Miriam, Jake and I flew from Colorado
Springs, Jeff from Los Angeles, and Joah from Boston, all
rendezvousing in Prague. With the help of a Czech friend we secured
lodging in the Ziskov district far from any tourist hotels, giving us
a good feel for the real everyday Prague. We spent two days visiting
this marvelous old city, learning how to get around on the trams and
Metro and how to order food.

On June 16, the day before the official
ceremony, Jeff, Jake and I planned to have a quiet,
personal visit to the Slany memorial. But we had underestimated the
importance the Czechs place on these events and the gratitude they
feel toward American servicemen of WWII, even though both Allen and
Jan had warned us we would be “star attractions” and “the main
event.” We were met on the outskirts of Slany by an escort—a
fellow in an American GI corporal’s uniform driving a 1943 Willys
jeep, flying a large American flag, looking as if he had just arrived
with the Third Army. He led us into the town square where we were
met by an official delegation which included the mayor, vice mayor,
reporters, photographers, and others. Milan Spineta, another person
responsible for the memorial and for organizing all the events around
the ceremony that week, was also there.

We exchanged gifts, took photos, and
received a tribute and heartfelt “thank you” to America from the
mayor. Then we walked to the town museum where we were unexpectedly
shown one of the scarred propeller blades from my father’s plane.
Holding that scarred blade up for photographs was lump-in-the-throat
experience.

We had lunch at a fine restaurant where
the owner and the chef warmly greeted us on the sidewalk and posed
for pictures with us. Then we rode to the airfield about a mile out
of town to visit the memorial we’d only seen in photos. The three
of us were silent for long moments as we took in the visual impact of
the monument and studied the names engraved there of my father and
his seven crew members. The monument is cast in the exact size and
shape of a B-17 tail, painted with the triangle W of the 398th,
and with the serial number 46573 of that downed plane. The names of
the crew are engraved on bronze plaques. It is a most tasteful and
impressive memorial, inspiring powerful emotions.

On the morning of June 17, we all
boarded a chartered bus in Prague along with several Czech RAF vets
and their friends and family bound for the memorial service at Slany, about 18 miles from Prague.
We were met at the airfield by a crowd of 60 or 70 people along with
dozens of photographers – Czech paparazzi. A military honor guard
stood at attention beneath the twin flag poles flying the Czech and
American flags. To see a short clip of the ceremony, see here.

As the ceremony began four of us placed
bouquets of flowers on the monument beside the names of the fallen.
Others involved were Lt. Colonel Bruce Goldstein of the American
embassy, the vice-mayor of Slany, and a Czech air force general. We
stood at attention while the national anthems of both countries were
played. Simultaneously, eight pigeons representing the fallen airmen
were released. I watched as they formed into a flock in the air and
wheeled and banked together over the air field as a trumpeter played
Taps. Nearly everyone was wiping tears from their eyes.

The four of us then addressed the
gathering, me going last. Most of the remarks were in Czech, which I
don’t speak or understand, but there was no mistaking their
emotional impact on the assembly. Jan translated every few sentences
of my remarks of honor and gratitude as more tears flowed. Jeff and
Joah performed superbly in documenting the whole event in photos and
video. When I introduced Miriam and the boys the crowd broke into
hearty applause, especially for 15-year-old Jake.

Following the ceremony we moved to the airfield hangar where there was catered food, good Czech beer, and a fine
20 piece swing band. I was
asked to join an autograph session along with the Czech vets where
dozens of people filed past asking us to sign books, photographs,
pieces of paper. All the while a small army of photographers kept
busy, recording every move. Miriam and the boys were also
celebrities for a day as they signed autographs and posed for photos.
None of us were used to this type of attention but tried to receive
it in the same gracious manner as it was given.

For me, the most powerful moment of the
day came from visiting and standing on the actual crash site of my
father’s B-17. Jeff and I were talking with Jaromir Kohout, who
heads a museum and memorial in Pilsen dedicated to two planes of the
398th which went down there on the last day of bombing
during WWII, April 25, 1945. We asked about the actual crash site and
he pointed to spot a mile or more away near an electrical
tower. Jeff proposed setting out on foot, saying we shouldn’t come
this far and be this close without visiting that spot. Jaromir said
we could get closer by car, so five of us piled in Jan’s little
car and raced around through Slany to a dead-end country road.
Jaromir led the way as we ran up a long wooded hill, across a
clearing, up another hill to emerge into a barley field near the
electrical tower we’d seen from the air field. (To read about the many years of searching that led up to this very moment, see here)

As we caught our breath and took photos
of a the barley field, I was overtaken with strong
sensations and feelings, and we all found ourselves whispering. On
the way back to the airfield Jeff mentioned feeling the same
sensations at that spot. It wasn’t until later, when I compared my
photos to those taken by Germans soldiers at the crash scene in 1945,
that I realized from the location of the electrical tower in all
pictures we had been standing on or near the actual site! In 2010, Jeff, my brother Steve and I returned to Slany and the crash site and, with the help of Jaromir and his metal detector, discovered several pieces of the plane 65 years after the crash.The thing that impressed me
most on this visit was the depth of gratitude that many Czech people
still feel toward veterans of WWII and how this carried over to me
and my family. We were important to them, not because of who we are,
but rather who and what we represented. For them the past is still
the present. One young Czech lady said that she did not know anyone
of her countrymen who had lost a family member during the war, “But
you Americans came to fight for us and lost thousands, including your
own father. How could we forget that?”

An American airman who recognized
and appreciated the love and dedication of the Czech people was
Melvin McGuire, a gunner with the Second Bomb Group of the 15th Air
Force based in Italy. The 15th flew many bombing missions into
Austria and central and eastern Czechoslovakia, mainly Moravia and
Slovakia. On August 29, 1944, nearly the whole of McGuire’s 20th
Bomb Squadron was wiped out over Moravia. Czech citizens retrieved
and buried all but a few of the seventy men killed that day. In his
book Bloody Skies, he writes:

“[Czechs] had nothing to fight with
and no allies. France, with its huge army, was defeated in a very
few weeks. The British had retreated to their island and were
embattled there. Then word filtered to them that the Americans were
bombing Germany in broad daylight. Perhaps there was hope. In late
1943 and early 1944, American bombers—B-17s and B-24s—appeared
regularly over Czechoslovakia. With their own eyes they had seen
German fighters burning and crashing to the ground. They observed
those battles where the Americans lost and their B-17s and B-24s
crashed to the ground.

“The Americans were the Czechs only
hope and they cheered wildly, much to the displeasure of their Nazi
captors, when American bombers formations passed overhead. Many
times, at great personal risk, they retrieved the bodies of those
American airmen that the Germans had buried in shallow, unmarked
graves. They built coffins for these adopted sons, often draped with
home-made American flags, and buried them in honored positions in
their cemeteries, with appropriate religious ceremonies and erected
monuments to them.”

At the time I thought that this first visit to the Czech Republic was a culmination of my search for my father. But I know now that it was only another beginning.

Lt. Donald R. Christensen

About Me

"This is a tribute to my father's life and his war. His name was Lt. Donald R. Christensen and he was a B-17 pilot with the 8th Air Force in England during World War II. He was stationed with the 398th Bomb Group at Nuthampstead. England, and was a member of the 603rd Squadron. He and all but one of his crew men were killed on March 2, 1945, when the tail was shot off of his aircraft by enemy fighters the plane crashed near Slany, Czechoslovkia (today's Czech Republic.) Tail gunner Selmer Haakenson was the sole survivor. I was two and a half years old.

I have been haunted by the loss of my father all my life, and after 70 years I still grieve. For the last 25 years or more I have been sporadically combing through old papers and photographs, military records, books relating to the 8th Air Force, and talking with many veterans of the 398th BG. I have been wanting to tell his story for a long time, and the 70th anniversary of his death seems like an appropriate time to get off my duff and honor his memory in words and pictures."

My Mission

I am a World War II researcher and my mission has been mainly to find out about my father. His name was Lt. Donald R. Christensen and he was a B-17 pilot with the 8th Air Force in England during World War II. He was stationed with the 398th Bomb Group at Nuthampstead. England, and was a member of the 603rd Squadron. He and all but one of his crew men were killed on March 2, 1945, when the tail was shot off of his aircraft by enemy fighters the plane crashed near Slany, Czechoslovkia

I have been been on this quest most of my life, but more seriously in the last 25 years or so. Now I'm ready to write about it.

Thank you for visiting my page and taking the time to read this material. I welcome all comments.

To see a slideshow that I made honoring the 70th anniversary of my father's fatal plane crash, see here.